People often ignore the facts：China is the 4th largest oil producer in the world and also owns the world's most abundant oil shale gas which is more than US's，China also owns the richest hydraulic power resource in the world which is equal to burning 1.28b tons of standard coal every year,not to mention other energies.

In 2035, China probably will has basically achieved industrialization,a more efficient industrial country,producing higher value-added products.High energy consumption's industries will be eliminated a large number because it does not need build more railway, bridges etc.For example,a half of the steel and coal and 60% of cement in the world are consumed by China now.

Another variable is energy price.If the imported oil and gas is cheaper,something will have a little change.Why people need refuse the cheaper imported oil and gas if you afford.After all,the "fracking" technology may be immature and bring a groundwater pollution.We need considerate the environmental cost.If the "fracking" technology can been improved a great deal，it also will bring us a real green miracle.

We also need develop some revolutionary technologies and a more environmentally friendly way in exploiting the ancient solar energy:coal.

Some renewable including wind and solar energy are just so so and also can bring a environmental pollution if in a wrong way such as disturbing
atmospheric circulation and taking the land too much etc.

So far, the best and the most green energy is energy saving.China need a police guide:Developing more convenient public transportation such as more electrified railway etc..As we know, the electric power sources can be very diverse,not only from oil and gas. private cars consume and depend on oil too much.So China should build a world's largest and most advanced electrified public transit system.More private cars will be a very bad idea for energy and natural environment.

All in all,in my view,China should more easily achieve "energy independence" than US,China really needn't a US's style of energy consumption.Certainly if US wants to export a great deal of steel,cement to China in 2035,it needs more energy consumption in the future.We shouldn't deny that high energy consumption's industries can also create many jobs which Obama or his successors may enjoys although they often will bring more pollution just like China now.Maybe,history is only a cycle and repeat among different countries.

There is nothing new here. The extraction technology has been about for years albeit with incremental improvements recently. The oil has been known about for years. The only difference between now and then is that there was easier (i.e. cheaper) oil to go after. Going after tight oil only makes sense now because the high price makes it economically viable to do so. This is no panacea. Technology is not a substitute for energy.

Fracking is in part a result of a lot of government research money over the past several decades. When yet smaller amounts of money are invested in green energy research the Righties scream "Socialism"...

I am sorry, but fracking is not the "result of a LOT of government research money over the past several decades". While some government research may have gone into fracking (and horizontal drilling technology), the vast, vast majority of research in this area came from the private sector. We may not like the companies, but Schlumberger, Halliburton and others have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the research that made this possible. And the companies that have been utilizing these new technologies took substantial risks in employing these new, unproven technologies in practice.

Your inference that government spending made fracking possible is laughable. I know, because I was there 20 years ago when my company became the first company to develop natural gas storage facilities in depleted tight gas fields. And we were among the first to "frack" horizontal wells in tight sands. The wells we drilled were very high cost, high risk wells and we learned as we went along how to make it work. It was not Uncle Sam's research that made this possible. It was the research that companies like mine and the contractors we hired that made this possible.

Fracking was developed not in some government research lab, but by companies actually drilling wells, trying new things (and often failing) and incrementally improving procedures well by well.

I was not actually 'there' so I have to depend on what I read. There seems to be mixed results after looking a bit more. As best I can tell, George Mitchell, with government support, was must influential in the development of this technology. I am not against companies such as Halliburton and Schlumberger in the least (in fact, I have investments in some of them). I just get tired of right wingers calling everything they don't like "Socialism" and any sort of subsidy to oil, gas, or other fossil fuel as sensible. I am pretty excited about fracking, if for no other reason than they are domestic supplies and way cleaner than coal. Green energy is certainly interesting but it does not appear ready for prime time.

Two words: Regulatory Capture. The EPA is just as vulnerable as any other federal agency, and for a long time it gave a complete and total green light to fracking as being completely safe, and only this year has it been forced to prepare a report to congress about the affect of fracking on ground water.

You seemed to miss the line where increasing fuel economy of the vehicle fleet contributes to the improving balance. If you are suggesting that oil imported from the Middle East is preferred to domestic supplies, explain. Oh yes, all of those fracking environmental disasters that have happened recently.

Nat gas IS the future of U.S. energy for the next several decades as the Obama administration kills coal and nuclear power. In the next few months a chain of nat gas service stations will cross the country on Interstates 10 and 95 and many other major highways (see Clean Energy corp) At a savings of $1.50 per gallon, the big truckers are driving this change and the rest of us will benefit. The Obama administration seems powerless to stop it so far. In fact the recent law requiring cleaner trucks is driving much of the conversion to nat gas trucks. Four more years without a rational energy policy will lower the standard of living for most Americans but I think nat gas is here to stay.

Even when we are 100% energy-independent, the cost of gasoline will *not* go down. This is because a barrel of oil excavated in the US is available on the world market and can go to the highest bidder anywhere in the world.

The cost of gas will probably hit $250 per barrel in the next 15 years, translating to approximately $12+ per gallon at the pump in our 'energy-independent' US of A.

(Which is why Obama's tack of requiring higher mileage for cars is the ONLY way we reduce our energy costs)

The cost of the gas itself will not go down, but the cost to the taxpayer most certainly will. As it stands, the US spends absurd amounts of money on various conflicts in the Middle East, as well as the associated intelligence, homeland security, and blowback disaster response costs associated with American intervention in the region. If America found itself in a position where it could simply remove all those assets and leave the Middle East to Europe or even China, individual Americans would suddenly have the money for massive tax cuts or sweeping social programs.

For example, a single US carrier group (which is insanely expensive to operate) is active in the Strait of Hormuz at any given time. Of course, this means the US has to build multiple CGs so they can rotate out, only increasing the cost. Why? So that the flow of oil is guaranteed to remain unimpeded.

And of course beyond the monetary costs, Americans will experience far fewer casualties, whether civilian victims of Islamic terrorism or military deaths protecting American interests.

It's impossible to see how this is not a huge benefit for the average American citizen and the US government, as America's only real geopolitical mess in the world is the Middle East, which energy independence would allow them to ignore far more than today.

Europe and Asia should be concerned, because this changing dynamic will dramatically increase their costs and responsibilities if they want to maintain competitive economic growth with the US, but Americans are ultimately the winners. Remember, the energy boom is not just coming in the US, but in Canada (essentially an extension of the US with a shared economy, military, and foreign policy) and Latin America, which with the exception of Venezuela and Cuba, is staunchly pro-American and currently comprises some 20% of the US population (a number which will only rise as well).

yes, but it will do wonders to help fix the American trade deficit if we don't have to spend money to ship oil and gas to the United States and instead export, meaning capital inflows into the United States.

There are many benefits from having a trade surplus, which if Washington decides to do serious reforms the exploitation of American oil and gas as exports would be the only way to save the almighty dollar from collapse.

When you drove to work this morning your car burned fuel refined from thousands of wells from many different fields . . . I thought you would like to know . .

To the "Conserve Baby Conserve" crowd... Increasing auto mileage is a good idea but if you do the numbers you will discover that it is only a small part of the long term issue. A temporary reduction in the rate of increase in consumption.

If the U.S. declares nat gas a "national security issue" it can restrict the export of nat gas by not issuing nat gas terminal permits like it has in the past. The gas can stay here, improving the standard of living of poor and middle class Americans.

"When you drove to work this morning your car burned fuel refined from thousands of wells from many different fields . . . I thought you would like to know . ."

I guess you do not understand the term 'world market' in my original post

ALSO, Using simple math & assuming gas at $4/gallon, comparing a Chevy Suburban costs 33 cents/mile while a Prius 10 cents/mile. The approx. $170/month saved is real money in my pocket not (as you claim) "A temporary reduction in the rate of increase in consumption." (whatever that may mean).

And it may interest you to learn that your proposal of restricting the export of natural gas is gasp...gasp.. Socialism. (Why not restrict exports of everything in order to let prices stay low here?)

As the US wants to shift it's military over to Asia, maybe the seaman on the Chinese aircraft carrier on the way to the Gulf will wave at the US seaman on the aircraft carrier leaving for the South China sea when they pass by each other on the Indian Ocean.

Brilliant comment. I've always believed that war was the worst possible response the US had to 911. Those untold trillions spent could have instead been used to develop a sustainable and energy self sufficient economy. Maybe it will start to move in that direction now. Already US CO2 emissions have dropped further than any other country because of the replacement of coal burning power stations with gas ones. Apparently they are at a 20 year low. While at the same time every other country's has gone up. This despite the US not even sign up for the Kyoto Protocols...

Maybe, but the US will have far fewer carriers active because they would no longer be stretched across the world, but rather on the US west coast and the Pacific region. And it's not like China has ever been a serious military threat to the US or vice versa -- both countries have possibly the largest amount of bilateral trade between two nations in human history, and both stand to lose far more for any conflict than they could ever dream of gaining.

The world would suddenly become a much safer and far less important place for Americans, although these burdens would fall on China and Europe. But at least this way, the US and its open society (which is quite vulnerable to terrorism as a result) would no longer be seen as the "Great Satan" worth killing, and it's hard to see how fundamentalist Muslims could possibly attack China without being incredibly conspicuous.

I was referring to the Aircraft Carrier Group already stationed in the Gulf which would head East if there was no need to remain there. (at least they were there in September, in fact I think there were two stationed there.)

There is always at least one active and one in port there, although recently there have been two groups active with one in port because of the potential for a large-scale Israeli-Iranian war.
And this is ignoring the US's ~20 amphibious assault ships, any of which is technically a larger aircraft carrier than most other navies' primary fleet carriers.
It's all absurdly expensive and half of the US Navy's purpose is to pacify the Middle East.

"The bill passed by Congress on Tuesday cuts royalty payments to governments where about 80 percent of the country's oil and natural gas is produced and shares it out more equally among Brazil's 27 states and more than 5,500 municipalities. It also redirects royalties to a national fund for social programs."
"Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo states, which have been experiencing an oil-led boom, stand to lose most. Rio alone will lose about $2 billion in 2013 and forgo $39 billion in revenue by 2020, the state development secretariat said."
"This bill will cause the financial collapse of the state of Rio de Janeiro," Governor Sergio Cabral warned in Brasilia on Wednesday. "It's totally unfeasible. The state would have to close its doors. There would be no Olympics, no World Cup, no payments for retirees and pensioners."http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/07/us-brazil-oil-royalties-idUSBR...

Ah! so many awestruck and naive about Brazil. Ah! I guess
PT Barnum was right. "There's a sucker born every minute."

Fracking could allow a slow transition out of oil, as opposed to a crisis of the scale of WW2 (early) in this century. But the use of foreign oil in America will still be dictated by its unquenchable thirst, not by the substitution for gas.
Even if all cars were to be changed to gas, which will inevitably has to happen (at least in the US). Electric cars will look like car phones today: A technology by-passed by a simpler/cheaper alternative.

A tribute to our creative oil men. I would like to see someone figure out, or at least give an educated guess as to how much capacity various countries gave up by nationalizing their oil fields and kicking out the world's major oil companies. Is it zero because they just hired the same talent back, or would america even be fracking and drilling in the ocean if there was better access to the world's oil fields?

Varies. PEMEX and PDVSA are textbook examples of how nationalization can negatively affect output, the latter of which is the starkest contrast because it was also an expropriation of foreign assets.

On the other hand you have national champions like Petrobras, Petronas, and Saudi Aramco that have good records (although Petronas isn't the best at investing in petrochemicals and Saudi Aramco doesn't have exclusive stewardship of Saudi Arabia's oil). You might also include players like Statoil, but that's Western.

Yep, it's important to note that Aramco (probably the most obvious successful example) has to directly compete with major multinational corporations so it inevitably does a good job as well, in addition to the fact that it's largely made up of the same people as Aramco hires massive numbers of foreign nationals.

The problem with nationalization is that it removes competition, and as a result incentive to innovate and improve.

Why not just say "Middle Eastern" or "Muslim" rather than the racial label "Arab"? Either of those two would make far more sense and the latter is arguably the primary cause for almost all of the region's problems, so it's far more relevant.

Arab Americans aren't particularly poor or violent, so it isn't about their "Arab-ness". However, Arab Americans are far less fundamentalist and intolerantly religious.

Good one. Although J.E.B. Stuart (neither Arab, nor Iranian) fought on the opposite side from Grant (and my forebears), his beard was much nicer than that of Grant - this from someone whose family was/is with Lincoln and his ideals all the way.

The problem is that "Middle Eastern" includes Israel and even Turkey, and "Muslim" comprises Malaysians, Indonesians, Central Asians and even Turks, Albanians and Bosnians in Europe. On the other hand, there are Christian Arabs (in Lebanon, especially), &c.

In the film 'A Perfect Murder' (a remake of 'Dial M for Murder',1998) David Suchet played the role of Mohamed Karaman, a good Arab-American police detective (or lieutenant, I don't know). Last lines (SPOILER);

[after listening to the tape of the murder plan]

Emily: [crying] He... he said he was going to kill me. So I tried to run.

Mohamed Karaman: And then he attacks you?

Emily: Yes.

Mohamed Karaman: What else could you do?

[Emily looks at Karaman with gratitude]

Mohamed Karaman: [In Arabic] May God be with you.

Emily: And you as well.

---------------------

Paradoxically, David Suchet [compare his good Arab with his not so good Arab two years earlier in 'Executive Decision'] is a British Jew and Gwyneth Paltrow is half Jewish.

What to me is the most intersting is that, without oil, Iran as a country can not support itself. From the same experiment, many other economies can not support their well being on other avilabile energy. In the future world without Oil,Coal, Natural gas we in a FIX.
I am learnig how to post, hopefully above is understandabile.RA

Not sure about the prediction for Europe. For one I don't think we could simply afford such an increase in energy imports for long. For another renewables are starting to play a significant part in the energy mix and that will have consequences beyond displacing nuclear power by 2035. And, who knows, shale gas might well get approval in some countries.

- Europe has a big current account surplus, and will be the greatest beneficiary of a Chinese trade rebalancing.

- Europe's greatest source of fuels is Russia, and they're selling oil & gas to Europe so they can buy capital equipment, cars, education, holidays, houses, healthcare, etc from Europe. Russia runs a bilateral surplus with Europe now, but that bilateral trade is highly sensitive to oil and gas prices

- oil and gas prices could continue rising; more likely, we'll have stable or falling prices over the next 10 years. Tech advance (horizontal & deep water drilling, fracking, etc), a successful exploration boom (Brazil, Falklands, East Africa, West Africa, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Ireland, West of Scotland, etc), political stabilisation (Libya & Iraq are investing heavily, Nigeria is building stronger civil institutions, etc) and recent high investment all foretell very strong supply growth into the next decade.

Against that, demand growth in China and India will remain strong, but will probably fall far below the present trajectory. On net, though uncertainty remains, prices will probably trend downwards (with continued volatility as per usual).

Europe will recover from its present recession. Europe is the richest continent - and will continue to import and burn vast quantities of foreign gas and oil, whatever environmentalists would prefer or doom mongers would fear.

Russia will be fine as the next generation comes into power. As you said, they are post-Soviet and internationalist in outlook, and on top of that, they are not blindly nationalistic like many of their parents and the counterparts in China. Young Russians see themselves as more European than anything else, and with that come more liberal views.

Russia has a huge talent pool and tremendous resource wealth. All it needs now is for true democracy and competitive capitalism to flourish, free of dictators and oligarchs.

I think both you and shaun39 may be wrong (and shaun39 has a great record of seldom being wrong, so I hate trying to correct him), but nationalism and support to the current government is likely to be higher in the youth than in (decently educated) late-soviet generation.

When I lived in Russia, as a moderate left-oriented well-off mid class European, I could hardly relate to people my age (I was 22 to 26 in those days), since any criticism of Russia, Putin, social inequalities and so on were met with fierce, offended, nationalistic responses. I mostly hung out with people in their 40s - 50s whom you could freely talk to, and who were actually hoping for something much different after the Perestroika, and instead they got a drunk as first leader, unashamed pillaging of the country’s potential, a massive devaluation, and a oligarchs-supportive former KGB-turned-strongman. Late-soviet generations heard enough “we are the best” BS to be smart enough a not believing, while the youth are fertile ground for any propaganda.

No black-and-white and mostly anecdotal stuff of course, but these were the feelings I could sense in large cities (such as Piter, Moscow, Nizhniy)

Let's hope that the US government encourages this growth in US production of oil and natural gas. The US (and the rest of the world) will be using oil and natural gas to provide electricity and energy to improve our lifestyles. Reducing imports will allow the US to be more economically success and help deal with both our trade deficits and our budget deficits.

Brazil is a tiny oil/gas market compared to the EU, ASEAN, South Korea or India.

Remember, Brazil gets most of its power from hydroelectric & coal, and powers most of its vehicles from home-grown sugar ethanol. Not to mention, Brazil still has a relatively small middle class and lower levels of consumption anyway. So, all in all, not a significant world market for oil & gas yet (well, not on the scale of India, South Korea or Australia).

I doubt that anyone could produce sensible forecasts with much robustness. As you point out, there is rapid (but unpredictable) growth in oil extraction. And there's a phenomenal untapped potential for extracting natural gas.

And, Brazil's relatively small domestic energy market could transform rapidly - within the next 20 years large scale new hydroelectric plus extensive rooftop solar would be unsurprising. Against that, the middle class should be booming with rising incomes and rising personal energy consumption.

How will that impact demand for fossil fuels? Does anyone really know? Brazil is well placed to be a massive net exporter of both oil and gas - but the domestic market could do anything.

Brazil has large oil reserves though, which is far more relevant when looking at the long term. The three biggest places of growth in terms of oil production over the next 20 years are the US, Canada, and Brazil.

Coincidentally, this bodes very well for the US and the rest of the Americas in general, since it gives them an opportunity to cut off the entire Muslim world, which in the US's case is the only part of the world that is outwardly hostile to them and remotely dangerous to its citizens. Hugo Chavez might call US presidents Satanic, but he has no desire to hurt any Americans nor has he ever implied such. And the Canadians are just whiter, more hockey-obsessed Americans.

There are many further countries with enormous potential for tremendous growth in oil production, which is why Shell might be close to the mark in predicting long run prices below $45/ barrel:
- US
- Russia
- Canada
- Iraq
- Iran (drop the embargo and watch output boom)
- Brazil
- Nigeria
- Kenya
- Sudan (North & South)
- the whole of central Asia
- China
- Saudi Arabia whenever it wants - if Saudi Arabia's share of world output falls, it might find world prices less sensitive to Saudi & OPEC output.
- Libya (high investment in existing sites, and international exploration & prospectors are all racing in now that the economy is liberalising)
etc

Even North Sea oil output has potential to grow again, thanks to new extraction technologies which make smaller wells, worse geology & deeper waters profitable. And there have been plenty of new oil & gas discoveries off the West of Ireland, West of Scotland, Falklands, off Cyprus, etc. Poland is looking forward to a fracking gas boom, the Norwegians are breaking into the Arctic, etc.

Sure, global peak oil will happen eventually. But probably not until green energy is so cheap, and technology so progressed, as to have rendered tolerable the political cost of taxing fossil fuels down to a niche industry.

Yes, that will almost certainly happen - but probably not on a wholesale basis until the 2040s-2050s (assuming continuation of trends in solar & wind energy costs, battery technologies, superconductor costs, etc).

(And within this, "oil independence" might be good politics, but it's nonsensical economics unless you're planning a war some time soon.)

Growth, not production. US oil growth is incomparable to that of any of those countries, although in terms of overall production its absolutely likely that SA or Russia could increase their own production enough to remain on top overall. Nonetheless, the point is that the US and Canada are set to go from very little relative production today to a huge share in a small amount of time, which has huge implications geopolitically.

As I said earlier, America's biggest military crises and expenditures have been focused on a part of the world no American wants to even remotely be involved in, but which they are forced into because of the necessity for oil. If this no longer becomes important because of energy booms in the USA's own proximity, the US government's expenditures will considerably drop and the risk to American citizens will disappear.

After all, the only other true geopolitical tensions for the US are Chinese (at least in the coming years), but then again, no two countries in human history have ever shared as much bilateral trade and economic interdependence. Both stand to lose far more than they would gain from any substantive disagreement.

Hypothetical consequences:
1. America continues to ignore global warming.
2. The Middle East collapses into poor, low-morale, anarchic, failed state theocracies.
3. America turns isolationist, raises trade barriers and tries to be self-sufficient.
Hopefully none of the above will happen, but you can see how they might.

The Middle East is probably all right, as long as China (and India) need to keep increasing theri imports. The collapse will have to wait for their oil to run out.

But China will need a serious blue-water navy to police their import sealanes, in case America does turn isolationist. The only question is how long they will be willing to be dependent on the US Navy for anti-piracy work.

Doubtful that China will develop blue water capacities anytime soon, call it 10-20 years. Regardless of North American production, US still has a vital interest in the 5th fleet controlling the straight, since oil/products are still vulnerable to global price shocks. America is in the position where it must spend tax $$$ to defend China's oil supply.

Middle East's problem is not the decline in American demand, but instead is the increasing domestic demand that will erode exports and state coffers. There is potential for big problems if emphasis is not shifted to renewables/nuclear in the gulf (UAE leading, as per usual), or placing a bigger emphasis on capturing associated gas for domestic power production. I am not familiar with how viable the latter option is...(anyone?)

Of course the climate can never be stabilized - it's a dynamic system. That does not imply that man's activities can not influence that system. And there is lots of evidence that suggests that is happening now and at an accelerating rate. Ah, but you will say, correlation does not imply causation, and you are right. But it is useful to examine a correlation to see whether there is, or could be, an associated cause. That has been done and sufficient evidence accumulated to strongly suggest causation due to green-house gases.

Of course it is hard to be sure when analyzing complex systems, particularly when many of the variables are not fully understood. But that does not mean that, if you apply a variety of different analytical techniques, and most come to the same conclusion, valid conclusions can not be drawn.

Think about the following as an analogy:
After WWII, life spans in the developed world started to increase, mainly due to improved nutrition and public health. As a result, diseases of older age - diabetes, cancer, circulatory problems. etc. became more common. Epidemiologists started to note correlations with smoking habits, but there was no known causation linking smoking to these problems. Researchers set to work and developed theories to explain the linkage, and these theories were validated by observation and using animal studies, since it would not be ethical to use humans. The connection between smoking and health is now universally accepted.

But before that happened, many people pointed out that (a) not all smokers develop serious diseases and (b) people had been smoking for hundreds of years without anyone noticing any problems. And they were right on both counts. But they were clearly wrong in jumping to the conclusion, which many did, that smoking was not bad for the health.

Climate change rejectionists like you appear to be applying a similar defective kind of logic, commonly known as wishful thinking. I humbly ask you to spend a little time thinking about this.